Who’s fighting whom? Rural-urban resource competition as misdirection

When I first read Professor Pruitt's 2014 book chapter on the rural lawscape, my gut reaction was defensive. I learned that rural areas have fewer courts, longer police response times, and less access to legal services than urban areas. The obvious solution would be to invest more money in these areas so that they have real access to justice. But then came my instinctive urban response: who is going to fund this? The taxes from urban spaces? Why should cities subsidize rural services?

I sat with that reaction for a while. It felt spiteful, and after some time, I realized I'd asked the wrong question.

The zero-sum framing

Pruitt's chapter, “The Rural Lawscape: Space Tames Law Tames Space,” talks about the “mutual constitutivity” of law and rural space. Rural areas have less law because their material characteristics (low population density, distance, sparse built environment) make legal infrastructure expensive to maintain. That sparse legal presence then shapes rural culture, fostering self-reliance and skepticism toward the state.

Photo Credit: Jay Walljasper (2019)

The policy implication seems obvious: if rural residents want more legal infrastructure, they need more funding. And state funding is finite, and largely comes from the taxes of wage-earners in the city. So rural gains mean urban losses, right?

This framing positions rural and urban communities as competitors. It shows up in fights over federal appropriations, in resentment about which communities receive disaster relief, and in arguments about whether “real America” deserves more than coastal cities.

Prior posts on this blog have explored related dynamics. One post on California redistricting quoted a rural rice and walnut farmer: “People in the cities don’t have a clue what it takes to survive out here. I don’t think people that were born and raised in the cities can represent us to the same extent.” This frames the issue as the big-city bureaucrats thinking they know better than the rural folk with their actual lived experiences.

Another post on the Secure Rural Schools Act documented how a rural school superintendent made fourteen trips to Washington over three years to secure funding that Congress acknowledged had bipartisan support but still allowed to lapse. The funding was described as “budget dust” relative to federal spending. If rural needs are so uncontroversial and so cheap, why did it take three years and fourteen flights to get the money allocated?

The actual budget

To help me put all this in perspective, I considered the scale of American federal spending. The FY2025 defense budget request was $849.8 billion. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had access to $28.7 billion in 2025. Customs and Border Protection’s budget was more than $19 billion for that year.

Meanwhile, the Legal Services Corporation asked for only $1.797 billion in 2025, while facing the threat of a proposed 46% budget cut. The LSC distributes funding for civil legal aid to low-income Americans in both rural and urban areas.

Photo Credit: Mina Corpuz (2026)

The access-to-justice gap that the rural lawscape chapter documents is not expensive to address relative to other federal priorities. The entire LSC budget is less than 0.2% of defense spending. Meaningful investment in rural legal infrastructure would cost a rounding error on military appropriations.

This pattern holds across federal spending. In FY2023, 62% of the federal discretionary budget went to militarized programs: war, weapons, law enforcement, incarceration, detention, and deportation. Less than $2 out of every $5 in federal discretionary spending went to education, housing, childcare, disaster relief, environmental protection, or scientific research. Since 2001, the federal government has added $2 to the discretionary budget for militarism for every $1 invested in communities.

Meanwhile, wealth inequality has reached historic levels. In 1963, the wealthiest families had 36 times the wealth of families in the middle. By 2022, they had 71 times the wealth. The incomes of rural men have stagnated for 50 years, while the top 1% saw their incomes increase by 229% between 1979 and 2019. Rural and urban working people have both lost ground to the same forces.

The federal government has the money to invest in rural communities. It simply chooses to fund violence. The scarcity that pits rural against urban is not a fact of nature. It is a policy choice.

The shared problem

Both rural and urban poor face access-to-justice gaps. Rural residents drive hours to reach a courthouse. Urban residents wait months for overburdened public defenders. The material conditions differ, but the underlying problem is the same: inadequate funding for legal infrastructure serving ordinary people.

There is some federal recognition of the specific problems that rural Americans face. The Violence Against Women Act identifies domestic violence in rural areas as a focus for discretionary spending. The Crime Control Act sets aside funds specifically for rural drug enforcement.

But legislative recognition of rural disadvantage does not guarantee meaningful investment. A post on the rural health fund noted that the $50 billion rural health fund in the recent reconciliation bill came alongside $137 billion in projected Medicaid cuts to rural areas over ten years. This is a gesture toward rural needs accompanied by a policy that actively undermines them.

The political function of the divide

When rural and urban residents see each other as competitors for limited resources, they do not build coalitions around shared interests in healthcare, legal access, housing, or economic security. The “why should my taxes go there” instinct, which I initially felt, plays into a framework where ordinary people fight over crumbs, instead of coming together to improve their material conditions.

Photo Credit: Jacob Migdall (2015)

A post challenging the Ezra Klein Show’s framing of rural-urban tension pointed out that rural voters alone lack the numbers to determine national elections. Blaming a “rural coalition” for federal policy obscures the urban voters who supported the same candidates and the structural factors that shape resource allocation. The framing is, as the post puts it, “inflammatory and therefore unhelpful. Of course, it is also inaccurate.”

Rural-urban resentment prevents coalition-building. When a rancher in Modoc County and an unhoused person in Sacramento see each other as competitors, rather than people with shared interests in functional public services, neither builds power.

What is the baseline?

I believe everyone in the United States should have access to a viable, just legal system regardless of where they live. That belief does not require me to think rural and urban interests are identical. It requires me to think they are not fundamentally opposed.

The money exists. The obstacle is political priority. Rural-urban competition is a distraction from the actual allocation choices being made.

New book: Global Reflections on Positionality in Rural Access to Justice

Global Reflections on Positionality in Rural Access to Justice Research is published today by Bloomsbury.  The co-editors of this anthology are Michele Statz and Daniel Newman.  A synopsis follows: 

This book offers a unique look at rural access to justice through a series of personal and professional reflections by leading scholars in the field.

Engaging a “position sensibility”, it explores how our identities, class backgrounds, and professional privileges shape research and writing in rural places-and how those rural places in turn shape us.

This is an important collection, for while rural justice gaps are well-documented, considerably less has been written about the distinct opportunities that rural communities present for collaborative research, innovation, and policy development. The book offers us an honest, reflexive accounting of what has been done, why, and what's next to dismantle academic barriers and promote meaningful work on rural access to justice.

As a call to still deeper engagement with rurality, this book will inspire readers to consider rural place in their studies of law-and to consider their own place in scholarship on access to justice.

Here's the Table of Contents; as you will see, it includes many notable scholars of rural legal scholarship: 

1. Introduction, Rebecca Sandefur (Arizona State University, American Bar Foundation , USA) 

2. Claiming the South, Elizabeth Chambliss (University of South Carolina, USA)

3. From the Valleys to the Academy, Daniel Newman (Cardiff University UK)
4. Improving Access...Delivering Justice? Insights from Empirical Legal Research on (Rural) Access to Justice, Leslie S Ferraz (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
5. Indigenous Communities and Reparative Reflexivity in Socio-legal Studies, Brieanna Watters (University of Minnesota, USA)
6. Considerations of Access to Justice in the Context of Disaster, Kyle Mulrooney (University of New England, Australia), Marg Camilleri (Federation University Australia), Joseph F Donnermeyer (Ohio State University, USA) and Alistair Harkness (University of New England, Australia)
7. An Escape to Rurality, Maybell Romero (Tulane University, USA)
8. The Language of a Place, Michele Statz (University of Minnesota, USA)
9. The Slain South African Police Officer's Legacy Lives on: A Rural Criminologist's History, Witness Maluleke (University of Limpopo, South Africa)
10. Race, Rurality, and Marginalisation in the American South, Lauren Sudeall (Vanderbilt University, USA)
11. 'Do What Has to Be Done': How the Codes We Live By Shape Rural Access to Justice, Hillary Wandler (University of Montana, USA)
12. My Past is My Present: Teaching in and Writing about a Home Community, Hannah Haksgaard (University of South Dakota, USA)
13. Legal Pluralism and Human Rights Concerns, Wilfredo Ardito (Pontifical Catholic University
of Peru)
14. The Importance of Place in Law and Society, Mark Fathi Massoud (University of California, USA)

Legal Services Corporation releases long-awaited report at Rural Reach event

Panel of paraprofessionals who provide assistance to legal aid clients
"Rural Reach" event, Oct. 29, 2025, Madison, Wisconsin 

Here are the broad outlines of this important report, "Justice Where We Live:  Promising Practices from Rural Communities, quoting from the press release: 

For millions of Americans living in rural communities, access to civil legal help is out of reach, according to a report released today by the Legal Services Corporation (LSC). The report, “Justice Where We Live: Promising Practices from Rural Communities,” is a first-of-its-kind exploration of the barriers rural Americans face in accessing legal help – and the community-driven solutions already making a difference.

Across the country, 41% of counties are considered “legal deserts,” with few or no lawyers available to serve residents (source: Legal Evolution). In rural-heavy states like Wisconsin, which ranks among the bottom three nationwide for lawyers per capita, families and individuals often face life-altering legal problems — from housing insecurity to domestic violence — without meaningful access to assistance.

To address this urgent need, LSC convened its Rural Justice Task Force in 2021. Funded in part by Ascendium Education Group, today’s report release marks the Task Force’s work by highlighting four key challenges.

• The shortage of attorneys in rural areas.
• The digital divide limiting access to online resources.
• Geographic and transportation barriers.
• Cultural differences that can hinder trust in the legal system.

Alongside these challenges, the report highlights innovative solutions already underway in rural communities and offers recommendations for lawmakers, courts, legal aid providers, law schools, and others. Promising practices — from technology-enabled legal services to new recruitment pipelines for rural lawyers to expanding opportunities for professionals beyond lawyers to help those facing legal issues — show that progress is possible and replicable.

“If we want to know how to deal with the challenges that face rural Americans, the best thing we can do is talk to rural Americans and the people deeply rooted in those communities,” said Fr. Pius Pietrzyk, LSC Board Vice Chair and co-chair of the Task Force. “In this new report, we've taken a deep look at the reasons families cannot seem to get the civil justice they deserve, and our Constitution promises them, and offers concrete solutions not just for legal services offices, but for all Americans.”

“Access to justice should never depend on where someone lives, but for too many in rural Wisconsin and across the country, that’s the reality,” said Rebecca Rapp, General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer of Ascendium, who serves as co-chair of the LSC Task Force alongside Pietrzyk. “This report shines a critical light on the barriers rural residents face and points to solutions they have developed to close the justice gap in rural areas and beyond.”

The gallery walk at the "Rural Reach"
event featured innovative approaches
to serving rural residents where they
are.  Oct. 29, 2025

For rural residents, the stakes are high. LSC’s research shows that more than three-quarters of rural households face at least one civil legal problem each year, yet 86% receive inadequate help. Without legal assistance, families risk losing homes, veterans struggle to access earned benefits, and seniors face crushing debt with nowhere to turn.

The report emphasizes that while the challenges are steep, progress is possible.

“We know what works to close the rural justice gap,” said Ron Flagg, President of Legal Services Corporation. “We need to invest in programs that bring legal help to where people live — from growing the pipeline of rural attorneys, to supporting licensed legal paraprofessionals and community advocates, to using technology that connects clients to help across long distances.”

These ‘fixes’ only work, though, “with sustained commitment at the local, state, and federal levels,” Flagg added. “Together, we can ensure that geography never determines whether someone can access justice.”

 A big focus of the event--not highlighted here--was a push toward the use of para professionals--sometimes called "justice workers"--to help meet legal needs in rural places.   The final panel of the day featured four such paralegals or justice workers from Montana, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Georgia.  Interestingly, a program to empower paraprofessionals in Washington State--there called LLLT (limited license legal technicians)--was shuttered a few years ago.  Now such programs--at least among a few dozen states--are being seen as the future of filling the justice gap.  Two prior posts on the rural justice gap and how paraprofessionals might fill them are here and here.  

Panel of judges and the American Bar Association President 
speaking in support of licensing of paraprofessionals, sometimes
called justice workers. 

Maine Law Review Call for Papers. Rural Perspectives in Law: Challenges and Opportunities

The Maine Law Review is seeking article proposals for our topical issue: Rural Perspectives in Law: Challenges and Opportunities.  This issue will be published in spring 2026 as Volume 78.2 of our legal journal.

Abstracts of 300-500 words will be reviewed on a rolling basis and should be submitted no later than October 1, 2025, at 5:00 PM.  All submission should be sent to mlreditor@maine.edu.

Rural communities across the United States face unique legal challenges that often differ from those in urban and suburban settings.  Issues such as access to justice, scarcity of adequate legal counsel, limitations due to aging infrastructure, and the impact of shifting industries and demographics shape the practice of law in rural America.  Maine is the second most rural state in the country with 62% of its population living in rural areas. However, most of the legal providers are located in the more urban, southern portion of the state.  Rural communities outside of Maine face similar challenges.  

This volume is meant to speak about the challenges and potential opportunities rural communities across the nation face, and contribute to a broader conversation about how the law and policy can better serve rural America. 

Articles published in this upcoming volume of the Maine Law Review have the opportunity to contribute to an evolving area of law and to provide practical guidance and commentary on a pressing issue many rural communities across the nation are facing. Potential article topics could include but are not limited to: 

• Access to legal services in remote communities.
• The rise of virtual court hearings and tele-lawyering, and their impact on legal services.
• Infrastructure challenges in rural communities including broadband, utilities, etc., and legal solutions to them/the role of attorneys in rural economic development. 
• Unique issues to rural communities in areas of interest like family law, criminal law, property law, or impacts to rural economies or heritage industries.
• Property issues including zoning ordinances, land use regulation (farming, fishing, forestry, cannabis, etc.), or the impact of pollution/climate change on economic revitalization.
• The impact of federal funding priorities and the potential disproportionate impact on health or public services. 
• Recruitment, retention, burnout, and retirement of attorneys in rural communities.  

 The editors encourage creative and diverse viewpoints, and encourage interested authors to submit proposals on legal topics of interest that impact rural communities. 

On rural legal deserts, this time in the Bench + Bar of Minnesota

Shaun Jamison of Purdue Global Law School writes (excerpting just a little here, but don't miss the full column): 

It won’t come as news to lawyers living and working in rural areas, but many of the people who live there are challenged by a lack of access to solutions to their legal needs. The access to justice issues have grown so acute in many places that a relatively new term of art—“legal deserts”—has grown up in legal aid circles to describe them. This article will offer a brief discussion of some of the key issues as well as possible solutions. 

* * *

There are several reasons for the low ratio of rural lawyers, including a misperception that a lawyer cannot make a living in a rural area, the “graying” of the rural bar, and a paucity of new lawyers coming in to serve rural areas. Some will argue that more lawyers are not the solution, or at least not the only solution, but there still is a minimum number of lawyers needed to ensure the protection of people’s constitutional rights and ensure the functioning of the court system. A criminal case, for example, requires three lawyers in a county to be available—and free of conflicts in the matter at hand—to try a case: a judge, a prosecutor, and a defense lawyer. 

Here's a (nearly) one-stop shop on legal deserts and related aceess to justice issues.  And Jamison refers to Hannah Haksgaard's new book, The Rural Lawyer (Cambridge University Press 2025), an important new resource. 

Marin County declares shelter crisis crisis after farmworkers displaced by historical Point Reyes settlement

Nearly 100 Marin County farmworkers and tenants are set to lose their homes. This comes as a result of a recent settlement to cease ranching operations throughout California's iconic national park -- the Point Reyes National Seashore. The settlement and its effects raise concerns over whether California’s environmental prerogatives are exacerbating the state’s housing crisis.

John Beck has reported extensively on the Point Reyes Settlement in The Press Democrat (Sonoma County). This post relies heavily on his reports which can be found here, here, and here.

In response to the settlement, the Marin County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted in mid-March to pass a shelter crisis declaration. The declaration will allow the County to bypass certain housing regulations, in order to rapidly develop emergency shelters for displaced farmworkers. The declaration will also provide for a number of different temporary shelter types, including buildings without permanent foundations, according to PublicCEO, an outlet for California local government reporting.

The Board's vote was met with broad support from impacted farmworkers and the community at large. "This is a huge win for the community," Jasmine Bravo, a Marin County farmworker advocate, said. However, some community members are concerned that the temporary housing initiative will only delay the inevitable -- the relocation of Marin County's long-established farmworker community.

As of 2024, Marin County ranked third in most expensive housing amongst all California Counties, according to a California Association of Realtors report. In light of this, Marin County housing advocates have expressed a desire to outline a long-term solution to the current crisis. Bravo commented: 

We are hoping that the [temporary housing initiative] is just an interim solution towards a much bigger project. And, hopefully, [the impacted farmworkers] have the opportunity to be homeowners in the future.

The County's declaration will remain in place for three years, but it could be extended afterwards. Funds to support the development of temporary shelters will "come from county housing trust funds," Marin County Supervisor Dennis Rodoni said.

The cause of the crisis -- the Point Reyes settlement -- was itself the product of a years of litigation among environmental conservation groups, the federal government, and Marin County ranchers.

In 2016, three conservation groups sued the National Park Service ("NPS"). The lawsuit challenged the NPS' decision to issue new 20-year commercial farming leases to several Marin County ranching operations, the Resource Renewal Institute ("RRI") explained. The conservation groups argued that the leases were issued without any analysis of potential environmental impacts and without public input, in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act.

The parties eventually settled the 2016 case. That settlement led the NPS to update its Point Reyes land management plans, "which proposed expanded ranching, livestock diversification, and mobile slaughterhouses in the national park," the RRI reported.

However, the conservation groups once again sued the NPS once again in 2022 to halt implementation of the updated plan. This time, the conservation groups argued that the plan violated the NPS's founding mandate to "conserve the scenery, wildlife, and natural and historic objects in national parks, monuments, and reservation . . . for the enjoyment in a way that leaves them unimpaired for future generations.”

An association representing several Marin County ranching operations joined onto the 2022 lawsuit. That same year, all parties involved in the litigation entered into settlement negotiations. Then, in 2023, the Marin County ranchers agreed to cease their operations , in exchange for around $30 million compensation.

The settlement itself has been met with mixed responses. On this point, The Press Democrat’s John Beck observed:

The settlement has proven divisive in the area, as some environmental advocates hail its benefits for the seashore’s watershed and wildlife, including tule elk, while agriculture supporters and others worry about the fallout on local businesses and schools, as well as the region’s farming legacy.

The Point Reyes settlement, and its resulting displacement of the County's farmworkers, is illustrative of the on-going tension between California's pro-environmental policies and its growing housing crisis.

Over the last two decades, California's pro-environmental reforms have come at the expense of pro-housing efforts. Take the California Environmental Quality Act ("CEQA"), for instance. CEQA was passed to combat climate change and prevent environmental degradation. And, in many respects, it has achieved this goal. However, CEQA has also infamously become the go to litigation tool for affluent community groups that oppose the construction of new, high-density housing projects. Thus, in a state that desperately needs to increase its housing supply, CEQA has operated to exacerbate California's housing crisis.

The Point Reyes settlement was similarly the result of conservation group efforts. The settlement's proponents may have accomplished their goal of mitigating the rancher's ecological impacts on the national park. This could only accomplished, however, at the expense of housing for nearly 100 farmworkers. Now, as a result of soaring housing prices in Marin County, many lower-income families are at risk of being forced out of the community where some of their families have lived for generations.

For a detailed discussion on CEQA’s impact on California’s housing crisis, check out this article by land use attorney Jennifer Hernandez.

The Point Reyes settlement is now another chapter of the growing saga that is California's struggle to reconcile its pro-environmental positions with its unprecedented housing crisis. This struggle shows no sign of relenting, as the state's housing crises continues to worsen, and the effects of climate change continue to surge.

Addressing the rural internet deficit by amending the federal BEAD program

Nearly 25% of rural Americans lack access to high speed broadband internet. Without internet access, geographically isolated communities are growing increasingly technologically isolated. This phenomenon -- the rural internet deficit -- harms rural American communities in a number of ways. 

To start, rural communities lacking adequate internet access, relative to their urban counterparts, are placed at a significant economic disadvantage. Studies indicate that "increased broadband access contributes to job and population growth, lower unemployment rates, and more business formation."

The rural internet deficit also has a direct negative impact on public health. On this point, the American Public Health Association has noted the following: 

[Today], it is almost impossible to consult a physician without access to telecommunications technology in the United States. The nation's health care systems . . . have shifted most ambulatory care to telehealth, primarily video visits. . . . Without [broadband internet access], patients cannot fully use telehealth in all its forms: asynchronous messaging via patient portals, remote monitoring devices such as blood pressure monitors, or synchronous video connections to consult with a physician.

Additionally, as noted by the National Center for Education Statistics, "students who do not have access to the Internet at home may be at risk for negative academic outcomes." 

So, what are the causes of the rural internet deficit?

The rural internet deficit can be primarily understood as a function of the relative spatial isolation of rural communities. As outlined by one Pew report

[h]ousing in rural areas, including low-income housing, is often spread out across greater distances than it is in urban regions. This increases the cost of building out the infrastructure needed to provide broadband access and means there are relatively few customers to subscribe to the service. As a result, [internet service providers] [or "ISPs"] do not see a favorable return on investment for deploying that infrastructure and often require federal or state subsidies to do so.

In addition to spatial isolation, lower median incomes amongst rural households decrease the likelihood that a given rural family will personally invest into broadband internet. The fact that many rural communities are home to older populations has also been cited as a factor driving the rural internet deficit. 

So, what are some possible solutions to address the rural internet crisis? 

In light of the lack of incentive that ISPs have to invest into rural internet infrastructure, it comes as no surprise that most of the proposed solutions, thus far, have centered on government funding. For instance, in 2021, the Biden Administration rolled out the Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment ("BEAD") program. This program sought to address the rural internet deficit by, amongst other things, providing federal subsidies to private companies that invest into rural internet infrastructure. 

However, over the course of the last four years, the BEAD program has proven unsuccessful in bridging the rural internet divide. Reports indicate that, to date, the program has not brought a single new internet connection to a rural household. 

One possible reason for BEAD's failure is that the program has failed to address the primary cause of the rural internet deficit -- geography. 

Currently, BEAD precludes companies willing to establish new rural internet connections via satellite from taking advantage of the program's subsidies. Rather, only companies willing to install fiber-optic cables qualify for BEAD subsidies. This is problematic because installing fiber-optic lines in rural communities is highly expensive and time consuming, due to geographical nature of rural areas. As noted by one report,  "[c]ost estimates for laying fiber-optic cable range from more than $12 per foot in rural areas with soft ground to $20 per foot — which is $105,600 per mile — in rocky terrain." 

So, one possible solution to the rural internet deficit would simply be to amend BEAD to allow satellite internet provides to take a advantage of the program's subsidies. By doing so, the geographic hurdles that have historically stymied the development of rural internet infrastructure would become a non-issue. Additionally, in contrast to fiber-optic internet, satellite internet connection can be established in a home within hours. 

In sum, the rural internet deficit harms the overall well-being of rural communities in a number of ways. The primary cause of the lack of internet access in rural America is the geographical nature of these communities; specifically, because rural communities are so spatially isolated, there is a high cost associated with developing rural internet infrastructure. These high costs, in turn, disincentivize ISPs from investing into rural areas. One possible solution to addressing the rural internet deficit would be to amend the federal BEAD program, so that satellite internet providers may qualify for BEAD subsidies. This solution would provide for new rural internet connections, while taking the limiting geographical considerations out of the equation.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion is not just for urbanites: how Trump’s war on DEI will harm rural communities

Since his inauguration, President Trump has made it no secret that he intends to go after programs supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion ("DEI"). In the span of only a few weeks, Trump has repealed a handful of executive orders promoting DEI in the workplace. Notable among these is Executive Order 11246, signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965, which required federal contractors to "take affirmative action" to ensure that their employees were treated without regard to "race, creed, color, or national origin." 

To further his anti-DEI mission, President Trump has issued a slew of his own Executive Orders, including one on January 21, 2025, entitled Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity. In this Order, President Trump proclaims that DEI undermines the "traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement" and exchanges these values for "an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system."

Perhaps no group in the United States is more familiar with these "traditional American values of hard work" than the American working class, which largely overlaps with rural populations. However, rather than President Trump's anti-DEI stance protecting the interests of the working class, his war on DEI is more likely to disproportionately harm poor, rural communities.

In particular, gutting DEI initiatives will inhibit educational access for rural people. For example, Lane Wendell Fischer, a self-described "cisgender white man from Kansas" writing for The Daily Yonder, described how he has personally benefited from DEI programs. As a rural college applicant from a working class background, Fischer had accepted his fate of eternally paying off student loan debt in order to earn a college degree. However, he was encouraged to apply to an Ivy League school, and was accepted into Yale University with a near-full ride scholarship in part due to a DEI initiative designed to recruit rural students.

Fischer emphasizes the importance of rural representation in higher education and beyond. Without rural students in higher education, how will rural interests be represented in companies providing healthcare or insurance to their communities? Who will bring the rural perspective to authoritative bodies, such as Congress? 

Similarly, who will provide legal representation to rural communities? Given that many rural areas have become legal deserts, a lack of DEI initiatives prioritizing rural representation in schools will exacerbate the already existing lawyer shortage.

Further, President Trump's mission to root out DEI will not only impact educational access in rural communities, but will restrict environmental justice initiatives as well. For example, the President has revoked Executive Order 12898, Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority and Low-Income Populations, which directed federal agencies to center environmental justice and address "disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects" on minority and low-income populations.

So far, President Trump has already begun eliminating funding and positions related to environmental projects, including those designed to aid small communities. While projects which have already received funding are in the clear, those for which funds were pending will suffer. 

Examples of the communities that may be impacted include places like Danville, Arkansas, where a 122 mile EF-4 tornado rampaged the county in 2008. Because Danville is a poor, rural community, $2.5 million in federal funds was allocated to build a school tornado shelter.

In an interview with CNN, Professor Robert Bullard, a sociologist dubbed "the father of environmental justice," poignantly stated, "it's not DEI (to have) the right to breathe clean air (or) drink clean water." Unfortunately, the politicization of DEI will only serve to exaggerate rural vulnerabilities and disproportionately restrict the rights and resources rural people require to survive and thrive.

Ameliorating the rural attorney shortage by amending the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program

Rural communities throughout the United States are experiencing an acute legal crisis: they aren’t home to enough lawyers. One report estimates that only “2% of small law practices in the United States are located in rural places, even though less than one-fifth of the nation’s population lives in rural locales.” 

The consequences of this phenomenon are tangible. Studies indicate that rural Americans living in legal deserts are more likely to be afflicted by a myriad of issues such as a lack of access to health care, housing insecurity, and substance abuse. These consequences are further compounded by the fact that attorney deserts exist more commonly in high poverty areas. 

So what is the primary cause of rural legal deserts? 

Some reports have cited “social isolation” and a “lack of racial/cultural diversity” as driving forces behind the problem, while others have speculated that “[t]ransportation and associated costs are a burden to those living in rural areas.” These factors, and a number of others, certainly play a role perpetuating the rural attorney shortage. However, the problem is more aptly explained by one looking at one factor: money. 

Rural legal deserts, to a great extent, can be understood as a function of the price of law school and the concentration of job opportunities in metropolitan markets. A study conducted by the Education Data Initiative found that “[t]he average law school graduate owes $130,000 in student loan debts” and that “71% of law school students graduate in debt.” The cost of attending law school, in turn, incentivizes junior lawyers to pursue employment opportunities that will give them the best chance to pay back their loans in a reasonable amount of time. 

One way of doing so is securing employment with a large firm offering high first year attorney salaries. Another common route is working in the public sector which then allows debt laden graduates to take advantage of loan forgiveness programs. 

These paths lead to careers that differ greatly in a number of respects. However, they share one characteristic highly relevant to the subject of rural legal deserts. That is, the overwhelming number of job opportunities with both large private firms and government agencies are in centralized metropolitan areas. As a result, most lawyers find themselves establishing roots in urban communities, thereby decreasing the likelihood that they will ever pursue a career in a rural America. 

So what can be done to address the issue? 

The California Commission on Access to Justice (the “Commission”) has proffered a number of state level solutions to alleviate the problem. These solutions include having law schools expand the scope of their loan forgiveness programs (which are typically reserved for those going into public interest work) to include graduates going into private practice in an underserved community. 

While this state-by-state, school-by-school solution would help, it would leave gaps. As noted by the American Bar Association, less than half of the states have their own statewide loan repayment assistance programs. Rather, the national breadth of the issue and the existence of federal loan forgiveness legislation, when considered together, seem to suggest that the best approach to the problem is a federal approach. 

Rather than having law schools expand the scope of their loan forgiveness programs, a more cohesive solution would be to amend the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness (“PSLF”) Program, so that first-year attorneys going to work for a private firm located within a rural legal desert would be eligible for debt relief. 

Currently, only those working for U.S.-based government organizations and certain not-for-profit organizations qualify for the PSLF Program. However, in light of the program's underlying purpose -- "to encourage individuals to enter and continue in full-time public service" -- the argument for expanding the statutes employer eligibility carries significant weight. 

Like attorneys performing government services or working for non-profits, private attorneys working out of rural legal deserts perform an important public service.  As noted by UC Davis Law Professor Lisa Pruitt, rural attorneys work with communities suffering "disproportionately from poverty, poor health outcomes, the opioid epidemic, educational deficits, and environmental degradation, among other challenges." 

The argument for expanding the PSLF Program's employer eligibility requirement is further bolstered by the fact the many, if not most, private rural attorneys are paid at similar, or lower, rates than a number of government attorneys. For instance, a district attorney working in San Jose, CA, has an average salary of $127, 518. In contrast, at least one rural legal practice report has found that "[t]he prevalence of indigent clients [in rural communities] contributes to the financial stress that many rural attorneys experience." So, it would not be far fetched to assume that most private rural attorneys make substantially less than other government positions that qualify for the PSLF Program. 

In sum, there exists little basis for excluding private rural attorneys from the PSLF Program. These attorneys offer invaluable services to an often overlooked, highly vulnerable segment of the American population. While amending the PSLF Program might not solve the issue entirely, it may go a long way in helping.